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“Get passionate” with Ellen Larson Wednesday, March 24, 2010 Issue 45

E D I T O R I A L L Y

I N D E P E N D E N T

PUBLISHED SINCE 1906 http://dailybeacon.utk.edu

Vol. 113 S T U D E N T

N E W S P A P E R

O F

T H E

U N I V E R S I T Y

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T E N N E S S E E

SGA campaigns target university issues Ex-NYC crane inspector pleads guilty to bribery NEW YORK — New York City's former chief crane inspector has admitted taking more than $10,000 in payoffs to fake inspection and crane operator licensing exam results.

James Delayo pleaded guilty Tuesday to receiving bribes. He showed no emotion as he read a short statement in court acknowledging his crime.

Delayo is to be sentenced May 4. He faces two to six years in prison.

"As a former City crane inspector, this defendant was paid and obligated to safeguard the public," said Department of Investigation Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn. "Instead, he sold out and compromised public safety for tainted cash."

Delayo was arrested when officials scrutinized the city's oversight of cranes after two of the rigs collapsed and killed people in 2008. But the charges against him weren't tied to the collapses.

Obama officials say US drug demand fuels violence MEXICO CITY — A cast of senior U.S. security officials pledged long-term support for Mexico's drug war while acknowledging Tuesday that an insatiable U.S. appetite for illegal narcotics, coupled with a flow of U.S. arms into Mexico, is at the core of the problem.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who led the U.S. delegation at a daylong meeting with top Mexican government officials, told a news conference afterward that Washington must do more to limit the movement of illicit weapons into Mexico from the U.S. "Yes, we accept our share of the responsibility," Clinton said, with Mexican Foreign Secretary Patricia Espinosa at her side. "We know that the demand for drugs drives much of this illicit trade and that guns purchases in the U.S. are used to facilitate violence here in Mexico. The United States must and is doing its part" to counteract those two elements of the drug-related violence.”

Arrest in Venezuela raises free speech concerns CARACAS, Venezuela — The arrest of an outspoken government opponent for his critical remarks on a TV talk show drew condemnation on Tuesday from opposition parties and human rights activists who said the case shows freedoms are being eroded in Venezuela.

Opposition politician Oswaldo Alvarez Paz was detained by police on Monday and has been charged with conspiracy, spreading false information and publicly inciting violation.

• Photo courtesy of Fuse

FUSE Flora Theden Managing Editor Voting for the Student Government Association takes place Wednesday and Thursday. Any graduate or undergraduate student who is taking one or more hours is eligible to vote.

Members from political parties Transform and Fuse have spent this week campaigning ferociously, holding various events and passing out materials on the Pedestrian Mall.

Tommy Jervis, Fuse candidate for SGA president, is a junior from Franklin, Tenn., majoring in logistics with a minor in marketing. Jervis has been involved with SGA since his freshman year when he was selected as a member of the Freshman Council. Since then, Jervis has participated in the New Student Relations Student Services Committee, served as a College of Business Administration Senator and served on the Executive Committee as the City of Knoxville Liaison.

Jervis said his party’s main goals are to establish a Student Allocation Fund, create an online syllabus, implement a system where students can use their VolCard on the Strip and develop UT’s own version of Craigslist called “Smokey’s List.”

Zachari Tahiru, junior in logistics, is the presidential candidate for Transform and said his party will work to make SGA more transparent.

“Transparency as in what SGA is doing to

• Photo courtesy of Transform

TRANSFORM

actively support and implement things that students want to see happen on campus,” Tahiru said. “If more students are aware of what SGA is doing that will lead us to the next thing we want to transform.”

Although Tahiru has not had previous experience on SGA, he is involved in the second largest organization on campus behind SGA, the United Residence Halls Council as the President for Volunteer Hall Residence Association.

The Fuse platform is focusing on four areas: moving SGA “Forward,” “Upgrading ” the daily life of students, “Syncing ” the students’ daily life with their academic life and “Empowering ” the student voice, Jervis said.

“Each area is designed in a specific way so that it reflects current student needs and will help SGA fulfill its mission of bettering the student experience,” Jervis said. “This is not just our campaign; it’s the entire student body’s campaign.”

Tahiru said he believes the Transform party is a great campaign and is “excited about the progression of campaign week.”

Tahiru said that Transform would work to foster more student involvement at UT. He said there are a lot of students on campus that don’t seem to care about SGA, and Transform would like to help them realize the organization was put in place to represent their interests.

Tahiru also said Transform would help the UT student body by contacting student governments across the state of Tennessee to help

tackle “issues revolving around the Hope Scholarship, differential tuition and overall budget cuts, to name a few.”

Due to the lack of proposals by SGA senators in the past, Jervis said Fuse plans to hold every senator to a higher standard if elected.

“We plan to implement an Activity Board on Blackboard which will display senators’ attendance, voting record and participation in SGA sponsored events,” Jervis said.

He also plans to promote more student attendance at senate meetings so they can contribute and participate in open discussions about issues facing the student body.

To address this same problem, members of Transform plan to assign each senator to a specific committee.

“This way, all the senators will be able to focus on these problems and will be able to follow through in actually implementing the bills that are proposed,” Tahiru said.

Tahiru added that this approach keeps senators from being “afraid to propose bills that they think may be shot down, or that they aren’t sure about.”

Jeannie Watkins, junior, is on the ballot as Transform’s College of Business representative.

Watkins said she chose to join Transform because their goal is make SGA work for all students, not just a select few.

Students can vote on the SGA Web site at http://votesga.utk.edu. In the event of a tie for any position, a run-off election will be held on March 29 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

SGA DEBATE BROADCASTS Today & Thursday on TVC: 4p.m. , 7p.m. , 10p.m. , 11p.m.

Can also be viewed on Web anytime at http://www.vimeo.com/volchannel

Simek discusses budget crisis at inaugural Honors Symposium Robby O’Daniel Chief Copy Editor Leading the Honors Symposium’s “University in Crisis” discussion, UT Interim President Jan Simek said the university will be a “different place,” facing major changes after stimulus funding runs out, but the challenge is not insurmountable.

Simek, along with four honors students, participated in the panel discussion on Monday morning at the Baker Center’s Toyota Auditorium.

Simek said, like the University of California system, UT faces a 30-percent budget reduction of its state appropriations.

“That’s an extraordinary amount — over $112 million for the University of Tennessee alone, system-wide, and it’s upwards of $70 million to the Knoxville campus,” Simek said.

— from The Associated Press

See SYMPOSIUM on Page 3

Senator pushes student research Robby O’Daniel Chief Copy Editor U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander kicked off the university’s first annual Honors Symposium by encouraging UT to push to be a top research university in the country as well as to team up with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Y12 National Security Complex.

Alexander is no stranger to UT. In addition to serving as Tennessee’s governor and the education secretary under President George H.

W. Bush, he was UT president from 1988 to 1991.

“People used to ask me: ‘What’s harder, being governor, a member of the president’s cabinet or president of a university?’” Alexander said. “And I would say, ‘Obviously you’ve never been president of a university, or you wouldn’t ask that question.’”

Alexander said he supported Gov. Phil Bredesen’s goal of making UT a top 25 research university in the country.

He said this usually also means at top research uni-

versity in the world, considering the United States’ wealth of research universities.

In addition, since the Manhattan Project and World War II, he called research universities the secret to high standards of living in America, saying five percent in the country are researchers, and they make 25 percent of the money.

He also encouraged UT to move closer to ORNL and Y-12.

See ALEXANDER on Page 3

CAMPUS CALENDAR

2 • The Daily Beacon

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

InSHORT

?

What’s HAPPENING AROUND CAMPUS

Mar. 24 - Mar. 25, 2010

Wednesday, Mar. 24 —

• 12 p.m. until 1:30 p.m. — Rosalind Hackett, head of the Department of Religious Studies and president of the International Association for the History of Religions, speaks on “How does God or the Devil Sound? Exploring the Acoustic and Auditory Dimensions of Religions” in the UC Executive Dining Room.The lunch is $8, payable at the door.

• 4 p.m. until 5 p.m. — As part of women’s history month, Career Services hosts “Women and Salary Negotiations,” a workshop that discusses the gender wage gap, including current statistics, when and how to negotiate for salary and the longterm negative impact of not negotiating for salary.The workshop is free and open to all students and takes place in Career Services, which is located at 100 Dunford Hall.

• 7:30 p.m. until 9 p.m. — The CPC Issues Committee sponsors the appearance of Jessica Jackley Flannery, cofounder of the microfinancing project Kiva, who speaks on how microfinancing is changing impoverished regions around the world.The lecture takes place in the UC Auditorium and is free and open to the public.

Thursday, Mar. 25 — • 3:35 p.m. until 4:25 p.m. — Jennifer Quinn, professor at the University of Washington, Tacoma, speaks on “Mathematics to DIE for: A Battle Between Counting and Matching” in room 102 of the Haslam Business Building.

Tia Patron • The Daily Beacon

SGA Vice Presidential candidates Angie Sessoms, representing Fuse, and Tommy Jervis, representing Transform, debate in hopes of earning the student body’s vote for the upcoming SGA elections. Elections will be held today and Thursday.

THIS DAY INHISTORY • 1977 — For the first time since severing diplomatic relations in 1961, Cuba and the United States enter into direct negotiations when the two nations discuss fishing rights. The talks marked a dramatic, but short-lived, change in relations between the two Cold War enemies.

Fidel Castro had led Cuba farther away from the U.S. orbit and closer to the Soviet bloc since coming to power in 1959. Throughout the 1960s, the United States and Cuba maintained hostility toward one another. By the mid-1970s, the deteriorating state of U.S.-Latin America relations suggested that perhaps the time had come to ease tensions with Castro. Though the Cuban dictator was feared by many in Latin America, he was also a hero to many others for his success in remaining independent from the “colossus of the North” — the United States.

• 1989 — The worst oil spill in U.S. territory begins when the supertanker Exxon Valdez, owned and operated by the Exxon Corporation, runs aground on a reef in Prince William Sound

in southern Alaska. An estimated 11 million gallons of oil eventually spilled into the water.

Attempts to contain the massive spill were unsuccessful, and wind and currents spread the oil more than 100 miles from its source, eventually polluting more than 700 miles of coastline. Hundreds of thousands of birds and animals were adversely affected by the environmental disaster. It was later revealed that Joseph Hazelwood, the captain of the Valdez, was drinking at the time of the accident and allowed an uncertified officer to steer the massive vessel.

In March 1990, Hazelwood was convicted of misdemeanor negligence, fined $50,000 and ordered to perform 1,000 hours of community service. In July 1992, an Alaska court overturned Hazelwood’s conviction, citing a federal statute that grants freedom from prosecution to those who report an oil spill.

• 1998 — Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shoot their classmates and teachers in Jonesboro, Ark. Golden, the younger of the two

boys, asked to be excused from his class, pulled a fire alarm and then ran to join Johnson in a wooded area 100 yards away from the school’s gym. As the students streamed out of the building, Johnson and Golden opened fire and killed four students and a teacher. Ten other children were wounded. The two boys were caught soon afterward. In their possession were 13 fully loaded firearms, including three semiautomatic rifles, and 200 rounds of ammunition.

Their stolen van had a stockpile of supplies as well as a crossbow and several hunting knives.

All of the weapons were taken from the Golden family’s personal arsenal. Both of the boys had been raised around guns. They belonged to gun clubs and even participated in practical shooting competitions, which involve firing at simulated moving human targets. Golden reportedly shot several dogs in preparation for the actual shooting.

— Courtesy of History.com

UT Knoxville Hosts First Ever

The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, is hosting its first weeklong celebration of undergraduate research.

Research Week will take place March 21-26 and spotlight undergraduate researchers, scholars, artists and performers with a concert, an art competition and a student paper competition.

Schedule of Events March 21

The School of Music has also scheduled the University of Tennessee Symphony Orchestra Ensemble Concert for Sunday, March 21, 4:00 James R. Cox Auditorium, Alumni Memorial Building.

March 22

Research Week Keynote Address U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander 8:00 a.m. - 9:00 a.m, Toyota Auditorium. Reception to follow.

Howard H. Baker, Jr. Center for Public Policy.

Honors Symposium 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Featuring Panel Presentations by Undergraduate Honors Students Howard H. Baker, Jr. Center for Public Policy.

Light Luncheon 11:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m. Baker Center’s Rotunda Honors Symposium Keynote Address and Book Signing, Richard Rodriguez (author/journalist)12:20 p.m. - 1:25 p.m, Toyota Auditorium, Howard H. Baker, Jr. Center for Public Policy.

March 23

Sigma Xi Graduate Student Research Paper Competition at the University Center in rooms 225, 226, & 227.

The School of Art has scheduled its Annual Student Competition in the Ewing Gallery for the Week of March 22nd, with its opening on the evening of the 23rd.

Sigma Theta Tau Research Day and Mary T. Boyton Lecture – Transcultural Nursing in Education and Practice at the University Conference Center, 600 Henley Street, 7:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.

March 24 & March 25

The 14th Annual Exhibition of Undergraduate Research & Creative Achievement will be held on March 24 and 25, 2010 in the University Center Ballroom.

On March 25th, the event is open to the public from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. An awards ceremony will be held in the University Center’s Tennessee Auditorium on March 25th at 6:00 p.m.

For more information on this week’s activities, please visit http://research.utk.edu/rw

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

ALEXANDER continued from Page 1 “The state has financial problems and will have for awhile,” Alexander said.

“The federal government is not in the best shape, but this year, and I was talking to (UT Chancellor) Jimmy (Cheek) about this, the federal government will spend $3 billion dollars at Oak Ridge and Y-12. So it’s been a good idea for a long time to take the science program here and the science programs at Oak Ridge laboratory and Y-12 and where appropriate, put them together.”

Alexander said that while many think of research as basic and narrow, sometimes it can have major practical effects.

“Sometimes the research that faculty members and students do can have a dramatic effect on public policy,” he said.

He used the example of Bill Sanders, a UT statistics professor in 1984, who worked on making Tennessee the first state to pay teachers more for teaching well.

“Nobody knew at that time how you measure student performance, at least how you relate student performance to effective teaching,” Alexander said.

The three methods offered at the time were looking at a teacher’s portfolio, having a principal observe a classroom or observing a teacher in the classroom firsthand.

But all of a sudden, legislature added in student performance to the mix.

With Sanders’ help, such a method was established and aided in the use of the program of paying teachers more for effectiveness, though Alexander said this program is now defunct.

“And now we have a president and a United States education secretary saying there’s nothing more important than relating teacher effectiveness to student performance,” Alexander said.

“And our governor, Gov. Bredesen, has just had

Tennessee take an additional step in taking Mr. Sanders’ work and tying it to teacher effectiveness.”

More than just having practical effects, Alexander said research would help the citizens know that politicians are informed.

“It would be comforting to most Americans if they knew that we politicians are guided by something other than our opinions when we make big decisions about health care and energy and other issues,” he said. “And your research can help to do that.”

Alexander concluded by offering four suggestions to students pursuing research: pick something practical, find the best professor as a mentor that the student can find, aim for a definitive piece of work and learn to write.

He related the last suggestion to his everyday job.

“Part of my job is persuading at least half the people I’m right, and that means speaking in plain English,” Alexander said. “I’ve gotten old enough or long enough in my career to assume that if you can’t explain to me in words I can understand what you’re talking about, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Cheek painted Alexander as someone who cares about the university and thanked him for his time during Cheek’s Washington D.C. trips.

“I was in his office about two weeks ago for 30 minutes,” Cheek said. “I had the full 30 minutes, and I think there must have been 100 people outside there, trying to get in at the same time.”

The Daily Beacon • 3

STATE&LOCAL

SYMPOSIUM continued from Page 1 “It’s almost impossible to move that amount of resource from an institution of higher education, which almost by definition has the enormous majority of its resources and people.”

Contrary to popular belief, Simek said the recent budget shortfalls are nothing new and that the university is at the end of a 10-year period of reduction of what the state provides monetarily.

He described this as the university becoming more and more a private university, where costs are provided by alumni donation, research dollars and student tuition.

“Compare your tuition at this state institution to any private institution in the state of Tennessee,” Simek said. “The contribution could be a great deal more than it is here.”

In addition, he said the process of the state reducing its portion to the university was not going to stop.

“With or without tuition increases, with or without increases in development, we are facing lower budgets no matter how we look at the process,” Simek said. “Stimulus funds have allowed us to be more gentle about the process.”

After stimulus funding runs out, Simek said the university faces great reductions in part-time faculty but that the university will not experience the same upheaval as in other states due to UT’s planning.

Still, the reductions will create a different UT with fewer sections of classes, larger classes and tighter schedules for students.

Plus, students who fail or cannot get a class will have fewer chances to do so because of less sections.

“Summer school is going to become an important aspect of how we move forward,” he said. “It’s going to offer the opportunity to take sections that you don’t get in other terms.”

Anne Buckle, member of the Provost’s and Dean of Arts and Sciences’ Student Advisory Councils and one of the honors students on the panel, said when she came to UT in 2006, she was told that the university was on the rise to becoming one of the top public universities in the nation.

“I want us to be a UNC or a UGA or a UVA, and I think we can be with the student caliber,” she said.

But she worried that lacking state resources and having to bear the burden of so much of the system’s budget cuts could negatively impact this goal.

Simek said that improving graduation rates could make the university comparable to those universities, and that is something still feasible, even with monetary reductions.

“That’s a number that doesn’t need money thrown at it to be attacked,” he said. “It’s a number that needs attention.”

Ultimately Simek said he wants to preserve the university’s ability to be comprehensive and not specialized in certain fields. He would rather the university be like the University of North Carolina than North Carolina State University.

“North Carolina is the broad-based professional school, liberal arts, business, that comprehensive institution that I think is so critical to the cultural and economic well-being of a state,” he said. “We don’t have North Carolina State in Tennessee. We don’t have Georgia Tech. We’re all of that.”

Even with the current challenges, Simek was optimistic about both his future and the university’s future.

“I’m looking forward to going back to my department and teaching students,” he said. “I don’t see my job, when I get back there, as being odious and difficult or second-rate. I believe I’m going to go back and move my department forward with the best students we’ve ever had, with the best colleges we’ve had around me. I think our future is actually quite bright.”

RECYCLE YOUR BEACON

Mario Moncado

Alex Oliver

Amanda Wampler

4 • The Daily Beacon

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

OPINIONS

LettersEditor to the

Public option would create monopoly with health care Every week, I’ve started out my Mondays by getting a Beacon during breakfast, opening it straight to the opinion page and seeing the latest in emotional attacks and logical fallacies in Sam Smith’s latest column. Many of his articles make me want to write a letter rebutting him, but I must say that his gross mischaracterization of the health care market in his March 1 column takes the cake.

First let me clarify. I think we need some kind of health-care reform. People who are so vehemently anti-government (of which I am often one) that they almost instinctively react, saying “Government programs are bad” overlook some of the spillover costs in health care.

When a worker is sick, he doesn’t produce, he doesn’t pay taxes and what’s worse, he goes to the emergency room and the costs of his health care are drastically more expensive than otherwise — and the taxpayer still foots the bill. However, this doesn’t mean that I support a socialistic system. My view is essentially that the government should provide a stipend to each citizen to purchase their own health care on the free market.

When the government endorses a “public option,” the public option inherently becomes the default choice. This hinders competition in the market, and essentially gives the government a monopoly. This is exactly what has happened in education. Public schooling is the default choice. While we have a voucher system in place, it is, at a bare minimum, difficult to navigate its bureaucratical waters. The result is that the government has no competition in the low-cost school market, because any business model that relied on vouchers as a method of funding would surely fail. The proportion of people that are even aware that we have a voucher system, let alone those that would utilize it, aren’t enough to sustain a business. The result is that only the wealthy, to whom the cost is insignificant, can afford private schools. In short, the government has a monopoly. As Smith must surely remember from his economics course, monopolies are one of the most destructive forces in a market — which is why we have the anti-trust laws that I’m sure he supports. To anyone who supports the public option in health care, I must ask this question: “Do you really think that our public education system, essentially a monopoly, is a good system after which to model our health care?”

Smith contends that the free market won’t work with health care, and the evidence is right before our eyes. This assertion, simply put, is laughable. To condemn free market economics in general based on the current heath care market is preposterous, because what we have now in no way resembles a free market. Thanks to governmental wage ceilings during the second world war, we have evolved a system under which employers compensate employees by somewhat non-monetary means, one of which is health care benefits. Since heath care is largely provided by employers, the purchasers of health care, namely businesses, have little to no desire to provide quality, and economically, their only incentive is cutting cost. Is it any wonder our health care market is collapsing? If an individual is unhappy with his health care, he has two options: Complain to his boss, who is very unlikely, if he is even able, to change the plan, or purchase supplemental health care, without getting refunded for the bad care he is currently getting, which can be very expensive. In a free market system, the consumer would have the choice of changing providers freely. The key characteristic of a free market is choice, and this characteristic is notably absent in health care today.

Robert Lumley Sophomore in chemical and biomolecular engineering

THE DAILY BACON • Blake Tredway

DOONESBURY • Garry Trudeau

Columns of The Daily Beacon are reflections of the individual columnist, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Beacon or its editorial staff.

Woods’ image equivalent to government’s Notes from the U n d e rg ra d by

Amien Essif Another piece of meaningful news on the seventh anniversary of the invasion of Iraq: Tiger Woods, in the wake of scandal, has hired ex-Bush Administration Press Secretary Ari Fleischer to “handle his image.”

For Fleischer even to be worth Woods’ hiring of him, there has to be a definite connection between the image of our government and the image of a professional golfer. I’ll bet I can name that connection. They’re both fake. They’re both illusions created by professionals so skilled at the art of deception that they themselves (the professionals) get traded like pro-athletes.

But everyone knows this — that the government manipulates its image. I don’t know one person who doesn’t believe in propaganda.

The problem is not that no one believes in propaganda. The problem is that everyone believes it. We, they, he, she, it eats it up. That’s what happens when you watch mainstream news channels and get your updates from Yahoo! News, which is where I picked up my bit of news for this column, incidentally. (Side note: I would never use Yahoo! to decipher global history in the making, but it is invaluable as an indicator of the absurdities of modern popular culture.)

The same news channels that have followed Tiger Woods around for the last few months are the same channels that for a year preceding the Iraq War uttered no statement if it didn’t concern mass-destruction or the clandestine weapons that could ship it air-mail to the U.S. And why could they not get beyond (or probe deeper than) the accusation that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction so imminently threatening that we had a right to strike first? Because that’s what the public relations representatives like Fleischer were feeding them in order to lubricate the push for war that had begun the day after September

11, 2001, according to Bob Woodward’s book “Plan of Attack” and which had really never been crossed off the to-do list after Gulf War I failed.

The information we hear over and over isn’t the product of some independent journalism or any other such myth. The executive elite — once Bush and Rumsfeld and Robert Gates, and now Obama and ... still Gates — turn to us only the profile they want us to see. And the entertainment media elite — Turner and Murdoch and Limbaugh — give us only the image we want to see, censored, of course, by their sponsors. Sometimes the two elite groups get together, like when Bush-appointee Kenneth Tomlinson took over the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and pressured Bill Moyers off PBS for several years.

It’s all about managing an image, the only image we are allowed or allow ourselves to see, our Ten Minutes of Hate to seethe and drool madly at that clip of Saddam Hussein firing off a rifle with one hand and smiling about those WMDs he was supposed to be sitting on. I know that image well. I grew up on it. I saw it every morning for a year during the daily broadcast of Channel One, the national grade-school news broadcast, which really did last about ten minutes.

And, like all the liberals keep raving, we never found the WMDs, one of the reasons being that they didn’t exist. They’ve been saying it so much, the truth is giving me a rash. We found Saddam, killed him, destroyed his army (like in some video game), but the best intelligence in the world (at that time) and the best PR in the world couldn’t find the loot or pretend we had.

The image must be maintained. The image is power. The U.S. doesn’t want to lose its image as the country you don’t mess with. Tiger Woods doesn’t want to lose the power he has over us either — his second stroke under par stroking our image valves. And it’s all an illusion, so separate from the real universe, the real nation, the real golfer, that it can be turned over to the custody of Ari Fleischer, the illusionist of the decade!

— Amien Essif is a junior in English literature.

He can be reached at aessif@utk.edu.

Western culture inspires selfishness C ommon S e n se by

Kel Thompson

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In the last week or two, I have been markedly busier than at any other point in my college career — perhaps in my life. It’s really pretty shocking to think about how little food I’ve eaten in this amount of time and even worse to consider my sleep schedule (or lack thereof). On top of all this, four of my close friends have experienced health emergencies with their immediate family/significant other, and a greater number have dealt with what seems to be an endless stream of minor crises. Somehow, I’ve still been able to stay fairly on top of my schoolwork during this time, even though it consistently remained on the back burner of my to-do list.

With all that being said, I’d like to share some things I’ve been thinking about lately, primarily concerning the concept of love and what it means to love someone or something.

There is no class that gives you credit for being a good person. Sure, some classes — religious studies courses, for instance — may analyze and explain the actions of the more famous Good Samaritans throughout history, but if you happened to miss a test or other important assignment because you needed to help your friends with their relationship issues or stopped to assist someone with their car trouble, you’re unlikely to garner much sympathy from your professors.

That’s kind of appalling, but in my mind at least, it’s a pretty good summary of where the world (or at least the U.S.) is these days. I don’t believe that most people are naturally as selfcentered as others may perceive them to be.

Instead, I think the problem is predominantly cultural. And I feel that although many still believe that it is human nature to first (and often, only) look out for No. 1, I would wager that these people have not yet fully considered how 5,000 to 10,000 years of political, religious and cultural dominance by the hungry and ever-progressing machine we now know as “Western Civilization” might have impacted our ability to tell exactly what human nature is. All I know is that I’ve

never seen a large group of humans in their natural habitat and that I see evidence all around that suggests culture is to blame for the lack of compassion and genuine love in our world.

The earlier example of very basic good personhood as a legitimate (or illegitimate) excuse to your professors demonstrates what I’m talking about. Multiple times last week, I had to indefinitely postpone whatever obligations I needed to fulfill that day or night in order to help my friends through their aforementioned issues.

Sometimes I found myself losing six or seven hours at a time talking to all of them, and — I’m a little embarrassed to say it — after all of this, I felt bad for myself because now I would have to forgo most or all of my sleep that night in order to work. My friends were going through some really traumatic events, and I was feeling bad for myself because of what their problems were putting me through.

Generally, we are not rewarded and at times are even punished for doing the “right” thing. It seems like no matter what good deed you perform, nobody ever goes out of their own way to help you when you need it. Good Samaritan policies begin and end with you; you usually can’t count on others to give you the same aid and understanding you provide to them. With this kind of risk/reward, it’s no wonder people seem to stop caring about their fellow human beings.

Let me boil all this down to a point. In the face of any hardship, love is the courage to overcome fear and complacency in order to help the ones you love, be it your parents, spouse, friends or complete strangers.

Let’s stop giving ourselves excuses for our own selfishness. If it’s human nature to be selfish and uncompassionate, why don’t we just drag out the nukes and rid the earth of our virus-like presence? Because that’s not human nature.

Human nature is to adapt to one’s surroundings and circumstances (bold claim, but hard to argue against I think). So, instead of accepting the status quo, what if we all started going out of our way to be as helpful as possible to as many people as possible? If more people actively showed their love for one another, it would become easier for others to do the same.

And even if I’m wrong about the whole human nature thing, I can’t see the harm in showing love and compassion to each other more often.

— Kel Thompson is a junior in creative writing.

He can be reached at kthomp28@utk.edu.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The Daily Beacon • 5

ENTERTAINMENT

‘Passion’ worship disc stands out Sister Hazel finds lasting success Ellen Larson Staff Writer “The Passion: Awakening ” live album, from its annual conference in Atlanta, is different and interesting, with its Christian lyrics and acoustic sounds mixed with heavy rock beats.

It’s a good worship experience, but it’s more than a worship CD. The lyrics and beats can put one in a better mood and put more joy into one’s day. People can listen to the CD repeatedly and not get bored.

The album seems to represent the movement of the Passion Conference, but it’s a good CD outside of the conference as well.

The CD’s name, “Awakening,” is fitting with the conference. Passion Conference is about awakening a generation to live out a Christian life no matter what they are doing or what they major in. The CD echoes this theme too with songs such as “Awakening ” and “Chosen Generation.”

Lyrics from “Chosen Generation” represent the theme of the conference: “We are a chosen generation. Rise up, holy nation. God, we live for you.” The idea is to get moving and not sit on the sidelines because God does not sit still.

Unlike many worship albums, the songs do not all sound the same. Most worship songs tend to sound the same and create a boring effect. This must be why most people do not listen to Christian music outside of church.

However, this CD is different, and the Passion movement is different. It seems real and truthful about praising God with your whole life. The song “Like A Lion” says “Let love explode and bring the depths of life. A love so bold to bring a revolution somehow. Now I’m lost in your

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freedom.” Passion’s movement is about losing the boundaries and boxes of life.

There will be highs and lows in the songs on the album because the songs will seem to be acoustic as they start and then randomly burst out into heavy rock.

The song “Awakening ” starts out acoustic and raw, almost like a song by The Fray, and it slowly builds up to a heavier rock feel — until it explodes in the last minute of the song. The diverse beats are a good thing and make the CD that much more interesting and not at all boring.

Some songs such as “How He Loves” seem very poppy. Other songs have a slightly harder rock feel like the alternative rock bands Need to Breathe and Kings of Leon.

The audience at the Passion Conference can also be heard on the CD. Their “oooh-ooohs” can be heard on “With Everything.” It’s a surprising thing to hear from the audience because I would expect the artists to be about themselves.

But the artists seem to need the audience of students just as much as the students need the artists.

This creates a very communal effect between the artists and the audience. One can hear the students’ singing voices, screams and claps on the CD. The audience of college students is heard from on just about every song.

This relationship between the artists and the audience is reminiscent of the energy and passion at the Passion Conference. But listening to the album, it is reminiscent of the passion and joy people can have while going to class, doing homework or going to a party.

Will Abrams Staff Writer Back in 1997, most of today’s hot musicians were sitting in homeroom only dreaming of playing in front of sold-out crowds.

That was also the year that Sister Hazel had its first hit single.

The group, originally from Gainesville, Fla., came together in the mid-90s while the band members were in college. “We admired each other and…we wanted to form a group at some point,” guitarist Ryan Newell said. “I used to do duos with Andrew (guitarist Copeland), and when he wanted to make it a full band, we put out flyers.”

Bassist Jett Beres was the first to respond to the flyer, with drummer Mark Trojanowski and vocalist/guitarist Ken Block completing the ensemble.

Unlike most bands that work for years to put out a decent track, Sister Hazel hit it big with the song “All for You” on their second album, “Somewhere More Familiar.”

At the time, the band wasn’t even part of a major label, putting most of the work on their own shoulders.

“We weren’t going to wait around for a label to come and sign us, so we just decided to do it on our own,” Newell said.

While many of the labels hadn’t known about the band before the single became popular, there were plenty of offers following its release. “(It) was a little bit sweet for us because we thought of that album as our demo and we put it out as is, and it ended up selling millions of records,” Newell said.

Although the band was an overnight success, many groups find trouble trying to match the popularity of their early achievements.

“We can’t control that,” Newell said. “We are fortunate enough to be making a living doing what we love, and that’s all we can really concentrate on.”

When it comes to keeping in touch with their fans, Sister Hazel goes above and beyond the call of duty. The group started an account on Twitter a while back that now boasts close to 800,000 followers.

“We’ve always been a very accessible band as far as our relationship with our fans,” Newell said. “All the way back since day one, we have been involved with the Internet and our own Web page.”

The group also has several events each year that bring them in close proximity with their fans, such as Rock Boat, a cruise that the band hosts with other top acts each year.

The group also held an event

called “Give Sister Hazel A Ring” where fans could pull the band members’ numbers off of their Web sites and talk to them over the phone.

The band’s single “All for You” can also be seen on Guitar Hero 5, the latest edition of the musical gaming phenomenon.

“We just want to constantly strive to have our music heard by as many people as possible,” Newell said. “(The game) is just another medium.”

“Release,” the band’s latest album, which was released last August, provided the opportunity for the group to put together songs in a unique way. “Everyone contributed to the songwriting on that project,” Newell said.

“Whoever brought the song in was the ringleader as far as how it was recorded and how it was produced.”

After 15 years of making music, Sister Hazel considers the sky the limit as the group continues to produce albums and do what they love.

“We are working on our next record right now and…we’re all excited,” Newell said. “As long as there is that feeling in the band, we’re going to continue to do what we do.”

Sister Hazel performs Thursday at the Bijou Theatre in downtown Knoxville.

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NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD • Will Shortz Note: The circled letters, starting in square #27 and reading clockwise, will spell a familiar phrase suggested by 20-, 35- and 52-Across.

Across

27 Fed. agcy. staffed with number crunchers

1 Fifth tire 6 Display strong selfesteem

1

23

18 It may have a big mouth

27

9

10

11 16

18

19

12

13

43

44

22 25

28 31

26

29

30

32

33

35

34

36

39 Abbey residents 40 She pined for Narcissus

40

41 ___ cherry

45

46

51

52

55

56

57

59

60

62

63

20 Beef entree

50 ___ whim

58

22 Mai ___

51 Minnesota governor Pawlenty

61

23 Tool with a curved blade

52 Holiday serving

24 Islam, e.g.: Abbr.

55 Prefix with center

25 Severely criticizes, with “on”

56 ___-Detoo of “Star Wars”

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE

S P A R K P F O L L O U O H G

8

37

19 State whose quarter 42 Stranded motorist’s need depicts mustangs 45 Pie preference and sagebrush: Abbr.

48 Hodges of baseball

O L E O S

7

15

37 Approached

17 “For ___ time, call …”

E A T A T

6

24

35 Ice cream dish

16 Live

A M I T Y

5

21

33 He spent time in a lion’s den

15 Remark that might get you in trouble

4

20

28 Praise

14 Nail on a branch?

R I D E A

3

17

11 Onetime “Say it with 30 Mallorca, e.g.

31 “___ the dotted line” flowers” sloganeer

G R I M M

2

14

N B A E O C G L A A M O R T A G E I N S M A T E E M C A P T A S B E L R O C E I O N T S D E E S

S T O P S E X T A S C O T

S S A C S I H O S A C S H O F O R E A I N R T E S E S E D A A N S A Y

A U D I

P R E S I T D L I C O S S A R M E P A A D N Y

P Y E D A S

38

39 41

42

47

48

57 Christopher who directed “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight”

5 Where King Saul consulted a witch

58 Cryptanalyst’s org.

8

59 Where Verdi’s “Otello” premiered

9

60 Quickly

10 Batting game for kids

61 Capitol Hill worker: Abbr.

N O F E E

A G E N T

62 Ones who try to put things past you?

C A N O E

H T E S T

1 W.W. II camp

63 Takes a break Down 2 Place for a gong 3 Mourning of the N.B.A. 4 Crucifix

49

53

6 7

35 36 Enmity 37 German border river 38 41 Maximum 42 Peaceful demonstration

11 1940 Disney film 12 Potter’s pedal 13 Creation, as of plans 21 Took home 26 Cries from sties 29 Camus’s “Lettres à ___ Allemand” 31 Bank 32 It has four strings, in brief 33 “Shoot!”

34 “Shoot!”

50 54

Nassau native 2,240-pound units Puts in order See 49-Down Harrison, for one Alice B. ___ (Gertrude Stein’s partner)

43 Short, as some plays 44 “___ World” 46 Slangy business suffix 47 Column with a simple capital 49 With 38-Down, recurring phenomenon lasting a few hours 53 Hit the stratosphere 54 Snare, in a way

6 • The Daily Beacon

THESPORTSPAGE

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Rallies pace Bulldogs past UT Kevin Huebschman Staff Writer In a weekend series with the No. 6 Georgia Bulldogs, the No. 17 Lady Vols controlled every game at Lee Softball Stadium. However, Georgia used a couple of crucial sixth-inning rallies to win the overall series against Tennessee, 2-1.

Saturday

Hayley DeBusk • The Daily Beacon

The UT Lady Vols and Georgia Lady Bulldogs softball squads created a dust storm this past weeked at Lee Softball Stadium. UGA came and stole two games of the three part series.

Coming into the weekend series with Georgia, UT cohead coach Ralph Weekly said he knew the games would be a challenge.

“In the nine years I’ve been in the SEC, they’re the best hitting team I’ve ever seen,” Weekly said. “They come up there like every at-bat’s going to be their last at-bat.”

After a slow first inning, the Lady Vols earned two runs off a bases-loaded walk and a sacrifice fly in the second to grab a lead they wouldn’t relinquish en route to a 54 victory.

Georgia’s first run came with a fourth-inning Jennie Auger single, but UT immediately followed with a two-run homer by designated player Lauren Gibson. The shot was Gibson’s sixth of the season.

UT expanded the lead to 51 in the bottom of the fifth

with an RBI double by third baseman Jessica Spigner to drive in center fielder Kelly Grieve.

Entering the sixth, freshman pitcher Ivy Renfroe immediately gave up a solo home run followed by a oneout double, and co-head coaches Ralph and Karen Weekly replaced Renfroe with sophomore Cat Hosfield.

Hosfield closed out the inning but not before allowing two more runs.

Spigner took the mound for the seventh, but gave up one more run, allowing Georgia to rally to a 5-4 deficit, before she was able to close out the inning. The win was the softball program’s 300th and Renfroe’s 11th of the season.

The tail end of Saturday’s doubleheader began in a similar fashion, with the Lady Vols jumping out to a 5-1 lead, started with a three-run homer by first baseman Erinn Webb in the second. This time, though, the Bulldogs made sure their sixth-inning rally wouldn’t fall short, earning a 10-6 victory.

Hosfield started the day’s second game, but the Bulldogs’ lineup plowed through each of UT’s pitchers in the sixth, earning eight runs off the combined pitches of Hosfield, Renfroe and

Spigner.

Left fielder Raven Chavanne was able to narrow the lead with a solo shot into center field, but Georgia’s Brianna Hesson answered with a solo shot of her own in the top of the seventh.

Spigner, who gave up three runs and recorded no outs, was credited with the loss, dropping her to 1-1 on the season.

Sunday For the second-straight game, the Lady Vols jumped out to a large lead, only to lose control late. Tennessee gave up six runs from the sixth inning on, losing 7-6 in eight innings.

The Lady Vols’ first runs came quickly, as Webb added to her home run total with the fourth Lady Vol grand slam of the year.

Although Georgia managed to cut the deficit to 4-1 with a single-run third inning, UT earned the run back with insurance in the fifth, as designated player Shelby Burchell delivered a two-run homer, her third of the season.

The Bulldogs again began a sixth-inning rally that the Lady Vols were helpless to stop, as Georgia added two runs in the sixth and three in the seventh, before capping off the win with a solo home run in the eighth.

Entering the sixth, the Lady Vols’ pitching had held the Bulldogs to one run for the third consecutive game.

The Bulldog rally this time, though, was not the pitchers’ fault, Ralph Weekly said, referring to two late errors by the Lady Vols’ defense.

Although Renfroe finished the series with a loss, she said her ability to hold the high-powered Georgia offense silent for much of the weekend was encouraging.

“It makes me feel good about myself and how I can succeed in the SEC,” she said.

Ralph Weekly held a similar view after the series, saying he was proud of the way his young team performed.

“Our kids played hard, and they’re good kids, and they’re going to win,” he said. “… I think the fact that, and I say this with all respect to Georgia, who’s a great team, that we were right there with them. I mean, there’s no ifs, ands or buts about it.”